Comb (restored), from Ardakillin Lake-dwelling.
Section of Ardakillin Lake-dwelling, Co. Roscommon.
By drainage operations, crannogs were laid bare in the Lakes Ardakillin, Cloonfinlough, and Clonfree, near Strokestown, in 1852. These proved exceptionally rich in ‘finds,’ consisting of implements and personal and domestic articles of bones, bronze, and iron. The surface of Cloonfinlough seemed to have been twice laid. Here a skull was found; and among the bronze articles was a lamp of Roman type. One of the four crannogs in Ardakillin yielded 50 tons of bones. The section of another is here given. ‘Under a slight earthy deposit, there was a deep layer of loose stones, bounded by an enclosing wall, the foundation supported by piling. The lower portion of the island consisted of clay, peat, and stones, mingled with strata of ashes, bones, and logs of timber. The various rows of oak-piling are shown in the section; the sheet-piling, driven in obliquely, formed an unbroken circle round the island.’[113] The ‘finds’ were numerous and varied, including bone pins and combs, articles of bronze, beads of stone, glass, and amber. Near the crannog was found a canoe 40 feet long, made from a single oak trunk; in it were discovered a skull, spear-head, and bronze pin. The skull showed that it had received twenty cuts with a sharp weapon, and though no one cut necessarily proved fatal, death no doubt ensued from the accumulated injuries. Up to the year 1857, forty-seven lacustrine dwellings had been discovered; and since then the work of investigation of these sites has been steadily carried on; and the number now known is over 230. Of these, Ulster has about one-half, and Connaught one-third. The Lisnacroghera crannog, near Broughshane, County Antrim, was discovered in 1882; but its features had been destroyed before a proper examination could be made of the site. Most of the ‘finds’ fell into the hands of the late Canon Grainger; many of them were of exceptional value, and will be treated of in another chapter.
But the impetus given to this branch of archæological exploration throughout Europe was more directly due to the discovery of dwellings similar in character in the lakes of Switzerland. In 1829, piles were discovered at Ober Meilen, on Lake Zurich; but it was not until the very dry and cold winter of 1853–4, that the inhabitants, in raising silt from the shallows of the lake to reclaim the higher portions of the shore, laid bare the piles of ancient lacustrine dwellings, and discovered a large quantity of stone and flint weapons, utensils, broken pottery, dug-out canoes, bones of wild animals, one human skull, and portions of several skeletons. On a careful examination, Dr. Keller was of opinion that the piles formed the foundation of a platform raised above the surface of the water upon which the huts were built, and that the place had been destroyed by fire after it had existed for a long period as the site of human habitation. Many similar discoveries in other lakes rapidly followed; and over 200 of these sites are now known in Switzerland. Their area of distribution has been found to extend throughout France, Germany, Austria, South Europe, and Asia Minor. The plan of the pile-buildings (Pfhalbauten), it will be seen, differed from the fascine method of construction generally practised in the erection of the British lake-dwellings. In Ireland, however, clusters of crannogs sometimes occur—as in Lough Eyes, County Fermanagh—and were, as is evident from existing remains, connected together by submerged causeways, or by approaches raised high and dry on piles. ‘A third method,’ says Dr. Munro, ‘was to construct, in close proximity to each other, a series of rectangular basements of wood, each basement having its sides formed by horizontal beams lying one above the other, and overlapping at the four corners, like the logs in a Swiss châlet. These compartments measured only a few yards in diameter. Their lowest beams rested on the bed of the lake; and when the requisite height above the water was attained, the usual platform was laid across, and the cellular spaces underneath became covered over.... This plan appears to have been adopted chiefly by the founders of the sporadic dwellings of the Iron Age.’[114] The population inhabiting the Swiss lake-villages must have been at one time very great. The settlements were on an extensive scale; and it has been estimated that from 40,000 to 50,000 piles were used in a station of the Stone Age period at Wangen, in Lake Constance, while some still larger required little short of 100,000. These lacustrine settlements were especially exposed to the danger of fire; but, as Dr. Munro points out, this ‘was the most fortunate event from an archæological point of view that could have happened.’ In the hurry of escape, little would be carried away; and perishable articles slightly charred were better able to resist the destructive agency of water.
In Scotland the first important discovery of lake-dwellings was made in 1863 in draining operations at Loch Dowalton, Wigtownshire, by Sir Herbert Maxwell. The remains contained Roman articles, which showed that the crannog was occupied during the period of the Roman occupation of Britain. With these exceptions, the remains were precisely similar to those found in Irish crannogs. Fifteen years later, the Lochlee crannog was explored, which was the beginning of a series of excavations in the counties of Ayr and Wigtown. Among later discoveries, the Lochan Dughaill lake-dwelling in Argyllshire disclosed the remains of a circular hut, in the centre of which was the stump of an upright post, with which the radiating planks were connected. The ends of these had square-cut holes in which the ring of uprights were fixed; but how these were connected with the central support for roofing was not apparent. Here fragments of glazed wheel-made pottery were found. Near Lanark, the Hyndford crannog, discovered in 1898, yielded a polished celt, and other stone objects; portions of querns; pieces of six different vessels of red ‘Samian’ ware, and others of the grey Roman pottery; an axe, and other objects of iron.
In England the remains of lake-dwellings are few. In 1868 General Pitt-Rivers described the discovery of piles in beds of peat, 7 to 9 feet deep, near London wall and in Southwark. The kitchen-middens yielded articles, chiefly Roman; but there were other objects of bone of a ruder type. Lake-dwelling remains were found in the Holderness, in 1880, during draining operations. The most important discovery of the kind yet made in England was that of the Glastonbury lake-dwellings, by Mr. Arthur Bulleid, in 1892. Here some seventy mounds lay close together in low ground, which was once apparently under water. The ‘finds’ consisted of a large and varied assortment of stone, bone, bronze, iron, amber, pottery, glass, etc. There was an absence of any Roman influence in the Glastonbury settlement; while many of the objects were of the Late Celtic period. ‘This feature alone,’ says Dr. Munro, ‘gives to the Glastonbury lake-village an exceptional importance among the lacustrine researches hitherto prosecuted within the British Isles.’
Of the exploration of Irish crannogs in recent years, that of Moylarg, County Antrim, was carefully carried out under the personal supervision of the Rev. Dr. Buick. The clearing laid bare a quantity of well-constructed woodwork, showing a system of log-supports to the piles, radiating beams, and uprights mortised into the base beams. ‘The layers of branches, rushes, and bracken were tightly packed together; stones large and small laid in between; and the whole well pinned down by stakes of hazel about the thickness of a man’s leg. These stakes had been pointed with a sharp metallic axe, three cuts as a rule sufficing to complete the operation.’ The ‘finds’ consisted of over 250 pieces of flint, mostly chips, an arrow-head, stone celt, a number of tracked stones, whetstones, and quern remains; bones of the ox, goat, pig—all broken for marrow—and red deer antlers; of bronze, a strainer of fine type with iron handle, an ingot and its mould, and a few other articles; four glass beads; fragments of leather: of pottery, a huge number of pieces; of iron, an axe of gallowglas type, portion of a mediæval lock, a chisel-like implement, nails, knife, half shears, and spear-butt; a lead pendant of Late Celtic pattern, and portion of a cross of ninth or tenth century type.[115] Similar operations have been carried out recently by Dr. S. A. D’Arcy in several crannogs in the neighbourhood of Clones. The ‘finds’ were numerous, and generally of the various classes already described.[116]
An interesting discovery of a ‘submarine’ crannog was made by Mr. R. J. Ussher, in 1879, at Ardmore. The action of the sea had washed away the shingle, and exposed a double row of pile remains enclosing an oval space measuring 100 feet in diameter. The stratum of turf was 9 feet thick. The encroachment of the sea is due to the subsidence of the land on the southern shores of Ireland well within the periods of human occupation.[117]
Examples of what have been designated ‘Lake Stone-dwellings’ or ‘Stone Crannogs,’ are to be found in the lake-riddled district of Connemara, to which attention was called by Mr. G. H. Kinahan in 1872. These islands have been wholly or in part formed of stones, and enclosed by a wall similar to the cashel of the land fortification. That of Hag’s Castle, in Lough Mask, with a thick encircling wall, is the largest of the kind. Others exist in a lake on Goromna Island, in Lough Bola, near Carna, and Lough Cam, near Roundstone Bay, and in Ballinafad Lough, near Ballinahinch.[118] Mr. Layard has described those in Lough Skannive, near Carna; but no exploration of their contents has yet been attempted in any of these islands.[119]